


The Cave

by ProjectZer0Dawn



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Campfires, Caves, Cooking, Dinner, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Friendship/Love, Gift Giving, Kissing, Love Confessions, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:00:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24888019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProjectZer0Dawn/pseuds/ProjectZer0Dawn
Summary: No friends, no family, no one to talk to, and twenty long years. He thought she was just glad to have a companion. She knew she had found so much more.
Relationships: Aloy & Erend (Horizon: Zero Dawn), Aloy/Erend (Horizon: Zero Dawn), Ereloy - Relationship
Comments: 10
Kudos: 66





	The Cave

**Author's Note:**

  * For [YoGrossDude](https://archiveofourown.org/users/YoGrossDude/gifts).



> This is my first ever fan-fiction, and it is also the first ever story that I can honestly remember writing. I was possessed by something while writing it so I do not know what goes on in this universe beyond what I have told you. 
> 
> My sincerest love and wishes to @YoGrossDude whose work inspired me to write this. The more I read your stories, the more desperately I knew I had a story to tell. May we have lots more of your work, you beautiful thing!
> 
> (I used to go by Jay on my comments, but all that's changed now.)

Every time he struck a new match, it turned out to be damp. Maybe his pockets were just wet. Or maybe he had dropped the matchbox somewhere on the way here. Man, what an idiot. The cave walls glistened with cold sweat, and rock tears.

Down the trail, she was setting up a campfire. Using the glowing little trinket that told her things no one else could hear - he couldn't blame himself entirely for not being able to match up to her. She was pretty damn incredible, no gadgets necessary.

She lit up a Blaze canister with what seemed like no effort at all. Apparently, a Sparker is all it took. As an Oseram, he must have been a disgrace to tinkerers everywhere. As Erend, _that_ Erend, he just felt lucky to still be around.

"World's going white..."

She had this habit of trailing off to herself. If her voice comforted him less, maybe he'd be startled by it more.

They must have voyaged hundreds of times like this, sometimes to clear off machines, sometimes to scavenge. A few times on royal missions, but those were rare and too privileged for wet caves and the wild, dancing moonlight.

"Aloy, when was the last time you had a hot meal?"

"Huh?"

It was as if she had been snapped out of a deep slumber. You'd think by now she would be used to companionship on her expeditions. Slow realization seeping in, she whispered, "Oh. I didn't realize it had been a while… I'm… I'm sorry. I have some boar meat if you'd like..."

Did this girl not feel hunger, somehow?

"And you?"

"Me? I really hadn't...thought about it. Yeah, I'm starving actually."

"I can fix that!"

He sprang to his feet and began prepping up the culinary action-plan right away. Unbuckling his armor, stowing away his handy little hammer, (little? Half the Vanguard would beg to differ), un-pocketing all the deep scents of Carja spices out of his kit, Erend sat down to wash his hands with lukewarm Chillwater before he could begin handling the raw ingredients. He wasn't surprised to see her complete lack of self-awareness, especially when it came to menial things like hunger, or thirst, or you know, basic everyday survival necessities. They had been on enough trips for him to know where her mind usually lay - on bigger things and on circumstances larger than life. A force of nature to be reckoned with, Aloy was an avalanche and an earthquake. She was a raging storm, what business had she with trivial affairs of those who lived in the tranquility of every day?

A hearty stew with a side of roasted turkey, Erend thought. This girl was prone to forgetting her meals. A proper little dinner arrangement ought to change all that. Maybe not now, but maybe eventually?

It was a pleasure to help her in whatever way he could. Between being the Savior of Meridian and the Nora's Anointed One, somehow Aloy didn't foster an opening for anyone's help - rather, she couldn't. Although that probably had more to do with being raised an outcast than anything else…

Even after all this time, the thought still hurt.

"Erend..."

She snapped him out of his reverie.

"Hmm?"

"Umm, nothing. I just wanted to tell you... well, I hope you know that I can roast things too."

_You'd think I 'd know that._

"Hmm?"

"Nothing I just - you really don't..."

"Aloy, I know I don't have to, and I'm perfectly aware you can out-roast me six feet into the ground. But if you'll let me, I've always loved food, and Oseram cooking is probably the only good thing that comes out of The Claim, and this is the one thing I really, really want to –“

_I really want to share with you, have with you, engage in with you exclusively, and you with me..._

"- I mean..."

"Thank you."

There was an unbearable warmth in her voice and an unforgivable sense of un-belonging in her eyes. She blinked at him, blank and tired. After a long day's hunting, traveling, traversing the lands, and trading greasy, violent mechanical parts, it was as if this was the thing she least knew how to do.

After everything she had learned and all the triumphs she had aced, Aloy had no idea how to call it a day - she was just so inept at being able to unwind.

"What?" snapped the huntress in question. At her sudden disapproval, Erend now realized he had been grinning vaguely in her direction. A chuckle inadvertently left his lips.

Of course, this was the absolute wrong thing to do, because within seconds he had been assaulted by a solitary airborne goose bone.

"You hunt those runts?" remarked Erend, having absently caught the projectile, now buried neck-deep into a very scientific observation. "Cursed slag, those squeak-squawking, free-loading Godless mother - "

At this point, Aloy had broken into a soft, melodious laughter, half at what he was saying, half at how he said it, but his very serious and very erratic rage was now unfortunately in full swing.

"-By the Forge, Aloy! If I had three arrows and had to choose between a bandit, an eclipse warrior, and a _goose_..."

"Okay, okay! I get it! You keep the bones then." A soft smile played on her lips as she said this, and it vanished into contemplation as quickly as it had appeared.

Until dinner was served, Aloy stayed retired in one corner of the cave, intently focused on something, paying no heed to anything else. Then the food was in front of her, and suddenly nothing else even existed.

Erend smiled unabashedly as Aloy gobbled down the last of her turkey - and then some of his. Once she had downed a pale of freshwater after her meal, she slowly began to regain her senses.

"This is why she doesn't eat," Erend beamed to himself, "it renders her completely incapacitated."

Always the warrior, she was. Always the huntress.

"That was the most intense thing I've ever experienced. And I experienced HADES," she finally remarked, deadpan.

"Bet even HADES couldn't kill like my cookin'."

Aloy snorted, but a flush of affection bloomed in her cheeks as she turned to retrieve something from her travel pack.

"I umm...I wanted to give you something."

He stalked closer to see what she was holding, clutched between her hands like an oblong pearl. The object looked like an invaluable talisman of some kind, bespoke and hand-crafted. It was a mishmash of mechanical joints and protruding bumps, radiant ivory, inscribed with the most intricate patterns he had ever seen. They might have been inscriptions, but he couldn't tell. The string it clutched to bled different colors - Nora blue, Carja yellow, Oseram orange. There was a distinct string of fiery copper too that he didn't dare assume to be a lock of her hair. 

Unbeknownst to him, that's exactly what it was. 

The blocky chain was an interwoven tapestry of all the greatest qualities of all the lands that she had explored. And if you looked closely, like Aloy's battle armor, the braid that held it together occasionally shimmered.

He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. He still hadn't comprehended what it was, what it did, or what it meant. All he knew was that it was the most beautiful little artifact he had ever seen, and were he to keep it, he could never bear to part with it ever again.

"It's...a Nora charm. It goes around the neck. We - _they_ \- usually make it out of boar fangs. But you were so fascinated by the goose bone I thought it could work...”

The thought of the blue-washed fang pendant that always hung around her neck, flashed through his mind. He knew it meant something in Nora culture, he just didn't know what. At this moment, he truly hated his uncultured ways.

As if hearing his thoughts, Aloy added, "It's for luck. And for protection. It's a token of All-Mother's blessing, wherever you go. And when someone gives it to you..."

Her gaze dropped to her feet and she looked as if she were transported to a time long gone.

"It means they care for you."

"Yeah..." she nodded, "yeah, that. It also symbolizes kinship...a... bond. Good wishes. I guess what I'm trying to say is, Erend, thank you. I just..."

She began to blush, and he took it as a sign of sincerity, nothing more.

"You are the greatest friend. I... I don't even know what to tell you."

No friends, no family, no one to talk to, and twenty long years. He thought she was just glad to have a companion. She knew she had found so much more.

"Hey, I know... I know. I get it... I just. This is so beautiful, Aloy. I don't know if I can care for it properly!"

"Oh, don't worry about that," she slowly grinned. "I know you're a tank. This - actually, it will help you resist all kinds of damage in battle. It has an anti-fire weave, an anti-ice weave, an anti-corruption weave, a stealth weave... I.. can't think of what else I put in there. I just wanted it to be, good, you know?"

It felt like she knew what she was talking about a lot more than he did.

"Help me put it on."

He had blurted it out before he had realized it. Aloy's eyebrows shot up, but a tight grin played at her cheeks, and she lunged at him straight away.

He hadn't even meant it the way she had taken it, but only because he'd never dared.

Before he knew it, she had knocked him on his back with her arms around his neck. She was close. So close.

Her breath was on his lips. He could feel it freeze as it traversed the chilly air, the little space between the two of them, and it crossed the distance to settle softly on his mouth. He felt her fingers barely trace the nape of his neck. A million things ran through his mind, and simultaneously, there was nothing in there, at all.

She smelled of wildflower and ember, and the faint smell of approaching rain. It was a scent he would cherish, and an aroma he would remember if it were the last thing he ever did.

She felt like an arrow to his heart, a boulder on his chest, a blanket weighing him down into deep, deep slumber, and he never, _never_ wanted to wake up.

Skilled warrior and expert craftswoman that she was, Aloy carefully latched the pendant behind Erend's neck, her eyes never even leaving his. Their eyes remained locked, honey, hazel-green on steely, icy blue, and it felt like her little errand was taking a little too long.

Perhaps her other Erend was taking too long.

She stuck in a sharp breath right before the icy plunge - suddenly, the lips he had never dared to linger his gaze upon, the taste he had never allowed himself to imagine, was all that he could feel. Her lips were on his. His mouth sealed by something deep and aching from within her. She was kissing him, no question about it.

But it was over before it even began.

And despite breaking them apart, Aloy didn't look away.

She was brave, a Nora Brave; a survivor, a tinkerer, a warrior. She was a force to be reckoned with, and at this moment, Erend was nothing but molten slag - soft with affection, warm with something deep and protective for her. It was all for her. He knew long before he had even admitted it to himself, something about him had become entirely all for her, and it was never, ever going to change.

Softly, he tucked a strand of blazing red behind her ear. 

"Aloy, I love you..."

She sighed as she nuzzled against his neck. She felt like a campfire, like the safety of the Vanguard. She felt like spring sunlight, like roast dinner - she felt so soft, she felt like home.

Her heart went from manic racing to a soft, steady thumping, like the sound of a Strider’s hooves when she approached the gates of Meridian. Her breathing evened out, and her eyes drooped with comfort and a sense of belonging. With the gravity of a snowflake landing on freshly heaped snow, and with just as much of a whisper, Aloy barely breathed:

"I know..."

The cave that had been damp in the early hours of the night had now become a bed of warmth for its languid inhabitants. The dead of night, in this winter solstice, painted the sky a drunken purple - and in the magic of the moment, in the daze of it all, Erend watched Aloy's breathing even out against his chest until his eyes no longer opened. From his pocket, the box of matches slipped out into a tiny puddle of spilled Chillwater. He had downed the last sip from the tankard of today, and tomorrow, no doubt, was going to be beautiful.

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, that's all folks! Constructive criticism is highly welcome, and all kinds of (preferably nice) feedback would be really lovely. If you be mean to me I WILL cry. ;;_;;
> 
> Take care, and I can't wait to see you again next time!


End file.
